The top priority in the State budget this year is the renewal of the multimillionaires’ tax.

Failure to renew the tax, which expires Dec.31 of this year, will result in a $3.3 billion revenue loss to the State in 2018. That revenue loss concern is compounded by another tax cut enacted last year, the second middle class income tax cut ” enacted during the Cuomo years. Advanced by the Republican Senate during the 2016 budget, Cuomo and the Assembly agreed to the proposal with a long phase-in until 2024. While its impact is negligible now, next year, in 2018, the ” middle-class income tax cut ” results in a $1.1 billion revenue loss to the State. The Republican Senate’s resistance to renewing the multimillionaire’s tax this year will have significant consequences: if you added the two reductions together for next year, the revenue losses grow to $4.4 billion and start forcing reductions in spending on school aid, health care, and transportation. Revenue losses from the middle-class tax cut grow to $4 billion a year by 2024.